The European Union (EU) and Serbia signed an agreement on Monday on pre-accession assistance worth 41.2 million euros intended for the reform of the rule of law and ensuring independence and efficiency of Serbia's judiciary.

The financial agreement, part of the Instrument for pre-accession assistance (IPA) 2017 action program for Serbia, was signed by Serbia's Minister for EU integration Jadranka Joksimovic and the head of the EU delegation to Serbia Sem Fabrizi in front of Commissioner for European neighborhood policy Johannes Hahn and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

At a joint press conference with Vucic after the signing, Hahn said that the agreement is "a small part of a great financial assistance to Serbia," reminding that in the past 10 years Serbia received around 2 billion euros from the EU.

He revealed that the assistance is intended this time to advance the independence of Serbia's judiciary, with more than half of the sum, 26 million, will go to support Serbia's judiciary reforms.

Vucic agreed that reforms in the area of the rule of law are necessary and assured that Serbia will achieve a significant progress before the next report of the EU commission.